


Who wants to hear a joke?

by sophthebi



Series: Life is a comedy [1]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Joker (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Joker au, Violence, cordelia is lucius, john is commissioner gordon, joker 2019 au, madison is catwoman, mallory is batgirl, michael is the joker, millory, myrtle is alfred, omg this is terrible haha, there will be more, this is part 1, zoe is fem batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 14:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20949776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophthebi/pseuds/sophthebi
Summary: These people, dressed in their expensive clothes, pretending to care about the welfare of people different to them. Pretending to want to change the city for the better. They had eight years to do so, yet no one had stood up to the challenge. Not until Zoe.The lights seemed to dim. Nothing was beautiful anymore.It was all false. A façade.And in her dark thoughts, she saw him. The orange suit. The green hair and painted face.





	Who wants to hear a joke?

**Author's Note:**

> okay, well, this is bad hahaha  
but it is only part 1 of hopefully maybe a 2 part series.  
so basically it's a crossover of apocalypse, the joker film, and then the batman universe in general, but mostly the Nolan films.  
thank you for reading <33
> 
> Also quick side note!!   
Michael is 23 in 1981   
Zoe is 15 in 1981   
Mallory is 9 in 1981

_1981, Arkham Asyulm_

He was finally noticed. Finally seen. Finally, existent in a world that had cast him out before he could breathe. 

Captured, yes, but free. 

White walls of an asylum, painted walls of his grandmother’s apartment, streets of Gotham. All the same. Didn’t matter where he was. He just … was. And that’s all that mattered.

He laughed, uncontrollably, but for once with pleasure, without shame. The doctor analysed him, dissected him perhaps hoping to unlock his secret. What he believed in. 

Jokes on her. He didn’t believe in anything.

But there was one thing he knew. Gotham would never be the same. And he had done that. He did it all. He smiled wide, looked at the doctor. He didn’t see her though. 

He saw two people dead. And a young girl staring down at their bodies, the broken pearls, and the aftermath of his own freedom. The young girl…

He’d met her. Zoe…

She had the same eyes as him. Waiting to be seen. He freed her. And he couldn’t wait for what she would become. He knew that he’d meet her again. They’d meet again.

He laughed. He laughed and laughed, hiccupping and choking on it.

Laughed and cried as he stuck a pen in the doctor’s eye, and stabbed into her over and over. 

He laughed when he ran down the white halls, ran from the orderlies. He danced and laughed, leaving bloodied prints in their pristine white rooms. His grandmother, Constance, used to tell him he was meant for greatness. To make people laugh and smile. To always smile and laugh himself, even when sad.

All laughter had brought him was tragedy. 

But with all he had learned about his life in the last few days, if anything at all, was that his life wasn’t a tragedy; it was a comedy. So how the fuck could he not laugh?

_1981, Benson Manor_

She was an orphan now. That’s what the newspapers said. What the news reports said. What her family’s butler, Myrtle had avoided saying. She sat in her room for the majority of the aftermath of Gotham’s chaos. Of the riots. Of the death of her parents. The death of the potential saviour of the city, her father. 

She was a spirit of hope and dreams. Bones and flesh but no soul, wandering the gardens and rooms of ancient happiness. 

That’s when she fell. 

Underground the manor was her future. In the darkness was her light. 

She was swarmed by her future, their wings deafening her, their squeaks and yells awakening something primitive. The animal in her rising from a slumber.

Her new self.

Rebirth.

_1981, Gotham City Orphanage_

She was getting a home. She was finally going to be home. To belong. 

A man had arrived to the orphanage. Handsome. Kind eyes. Well-dressed. Gentle smile. 

She recognised the man from somewhere, from the tv. A policeman. A commissioner. Commissioner Moore. That’s it. A good person, someone with a good-heart. 

The commissioner chose her. 

She was sad to leave. The innocent, pure part of her wishing it were someone else. Another child that deserved a warm home just as much, perhaps more than she did. Then the other part, the other side. It was prideful. She was chosen, why? Was it her shyness? Her timidness? What was it? Was she special? 

Papers were signed. She sat and watched silently the way the man talked with the owners of the orphanage. So easy. It was so easy.

She said goodbye to her friends. They were kind, supportive and she cried.

She cried during the drive to her new home. She cried when they arrived.

An apartment building, in one of the better areas of the city. More privileged. Old, but sturdy. Safe. It was dark. She looked out to the centre of the city, where all the tall buildings shone like stars. She often dreamed of running from rooftop to rooftop, being powerful and fighting crime.

There was so much of it in the city. She lost focus. Thinking back to what the owners of the orphanage had told her when she asked what happened to her parents.

The man placed a warm hand on her shoulder, tears welling in his blue eyes, stealing her away from the dark thoughts. “Welcome home Mallory.”

_1989, Benson Tower_

Mallory knew she wasn’t supposed to be there, she knew that if caught she’d be arrested for trespassing and god knows what else. But she believed, undoubtedly that Miss Benson wouldn’t let that happen. Well, that was if she were to be caught. Which she planned on not being.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. 

Cement. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. All cement. Eerie in a way. Sound was imbalanced, ringing in her ears. There was nothing but her heavy breathing, and the shuffle of her sneakers echoing as she walked the linear hallway. 

She was glad there was no choice to be made. All she had to do was follow the only pathway there was. It seemed she’d never stop descending into the underworld of the Benson Tower. Staircase after staircase. Turn after turn. 

The first sign of heavy security met her in the form of a steel door. Her grasp on Coco’s security card tightened till the sharp plastic edges cut into her skin. Coco had given it to her in secret (with much hesitance), after Mallory had confessed her belief. 

Her belief that Zoe Benson, newest owner of Benson Enterprises, billionaire and known wild child … was the dark knight. The vigilante that dressed up as a bat to fight crime. As stupid as it was … Mallory believed it wholeheartedly.

A swipe of the card over the sensor, and the door … remained shut …

“Shit.” She tried again. An unpleasant sound came from the sensor.

“Access denied. Access denied. Access denied.”

“Come on… come on.”

“Access denied. You are not authorised.”

Frustration and anxiety brewed together in a bubbling heat. An itch in her hand so unbearable, “You are una-”, she lost control and punched the card sensor. It went silent, sparks of blue jumping out every once and a while.

Mallory stared at it, realisation dawning on her. 

Not only had she trespassed, she had damaged the very, very expensive property of Benson Enterprises. Coco would kill her before anything law inclined happened. And that’s if the Enterprise didn’t hire a hitman.

A few floors above her, the elevator dinged, and footsteps pitter patted so quietly, she could almost convince herself she was hearing things. But she wasn’t. It was real. 

A familiar voice chimed in upstairs. 

One of the board directors. Always on tv defending the financial actions of Miss Benson. 

Cordelia Foxx. Zoe’s business manager. 

Frozen, stuck still. Hands and legs trembling and the overwhelming sense of regret and failure suffocating her in her own bubble stupidity. Why did she do these things?

Despair. Mallory soon realised it was despair.

The high-heeled footsteps were getting closer, so was Mallory’s heart to cardiac arrest. Her eyes flickered back and forth, until she found what she was looking for, not that she knew exactly what she was looking for to start with.

A vent in the ceiling. Wide enough for something her size to get into. 

One last glance to the stupid card sensor, and she ran to the other side of the hallway. Feet leveraging her up in the air until her fingers reached the crevasses of the vent. The weight of her pulled it open, giving her a chance to climb inside and shut it again.

She fell on her back, causing the metal of the ventilation to creak and bang as if she were some kind of rodent trapped inside it. 

“Zoe, look. The door…”

It was Ms Foxx.

Mallory wheezed in a breath of air, dusty and hot on her tongue. Panic set in and she knew it was a matter of time before they’d start looking for her.

“Go back upstairs, Ms Cordelia-”

“-I will not leave you to fend for yourself. I’m not leaving you down here alone.” Ms Foxx was concerned, as if there was always the threat of something… or someone dangerous capable of sneaking into their underground facility. Mallory knew for certain she wasn’t that threat. Who else would want to find out what’s behind that door?

“Are you forgetting who I am?” It was snarky, but pleasant. They seemed on better terms than they did on television.

“You still bleed Zoe. I haven’t forgotten the number that cat-lady did on you, although you might have.” 

“Her name’s Madison-”

“-regardless, Zoe, this is my playground. Not yours. Your playground is out there in the streets of Gotham, not here.” There was a break from conversation and Mallory could only hear her heart and who she believed to be Zoe searching around for evidence.

“Whoever did this didn’t get inside. They couldn’t have gotten far.” 

That was Mallory’s cue to move. She didn’t need to see it to know Zoe Benson was looking up at the vent. There was no point in staying in one spot. 

She crawled away from the vent. It creaked. She slowed down. Which made it creak louder. So she crawled faster. Uneven bits of metal lacerating her palms and painting blood. Wet and slippery and smelling of iron. 

“Hey! Hey!”

She ignored Benson. Continuing on her journey to who knows where. Hopefully an exit. 

It wasn’t long before she was met with a dead end, the ventilation squeezing too tight, too narrow for her to go further. And she couldn’t go back, for all she knew, Batwoman was in there with her.

Her stomach stirred. Heart pounding. Dust and sweat on her tongue, causing her to gag, palms throbbing from the metal. She was left to press herself into a position where she could kick down on the bottom of the vent, until it popped out, hoping to god that there was something below, not just a long fall to her death.

She eventually did fall. And fortunately, she felt a bottom to where she fell. Painful, yes, but not endless plummeting. 

Her bones and skin ached, bruises no doubt forming, cuts seeping blood. She rolled over, falling down from what had to be a desk. Moaning and groaning, she didn’t have the courage to look up at whoever stood over her, clearly shocked. 

“It appears we have a guest.” A soft, proper and almost British voice said. Mallory glimpsed sight of red hair above her, but avoided meeting eyes with whoever it was. Instead she looked down, only to become face to face with a mask.

Black, nose pointed, as were the ears.

She was right.

_1991, East End_

Paint, smoke and blood filled his lungs. The taste and smell never once getting old. He thrived in the violence of it, the intensity of everything that this life had to offer. 

He listened to the radio in the far corner, the guest on the station talking about the recent rise in crime rates. A man shot dead on his way home from work, a robbery at some elite bank. 

He laughed, high-pitched and uneven. It still happened. That laughter. It hurt sometimes, but he didn’t care anymore. 

Caring was an after-thought now. 

He took another drag from his cigarette, kicking his legs up on the vanity, crossing them and lying back in his seat.

“We were promised more funding for health services. It’s getting harder and harder for the poor, mentally ill citizens of Gotham to acquire medication and therapy.”

He thought it’d hurt to remember. The beatings. The tests. The ridicule. Realising everything he knew was a lie. That people like him were ignored, left to rot. Chewed then spat back out. A scapegoat to the havoc Gotham city had within its heart. 

He thought it’d hurt to remember smothering his grandmother in that hospital. To remember the abuse as a child. 

But it didn’t. It only made him laugh.

“You believe this is why crime rates are rising? Not that there are just evil people living here? Isn’t that a little optimistic on your behalf?”

He smiled, breathing out the smoke through his nostrils. 

‘Evil.’ What a funny word.

“Evil people don’t just come out of nowhere. They are made. If we put more emphasis on care for the poor, for the mentally ill, we may be able to control these people. Prison doesn’t help. Our law enforcement is one of the most corrupt in the United States. 

“We need to do something now. I mean, look what happened in 81. A man was shot on live television. If the shooter had gotten the help they needed, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Joker.”

He swiveled on his chair, turning to a man hidden beneath a clown mask. He didn’t actually know who any of these people were, all he knew was they admired him, and his hunger for the feeling of being seen and admired kept him from walking away. All he wanted was to be seen. To be heard. 

That’s all he had ever wanted.

“There’s a charity event coming up soon.”

“What for? Orphaned children?” He talked through laughter, eyes wet with tears, standing and stretching his limbs, “There’s plenty of them in this city.”

“It’s for Arkham asylum. They’re raising funds for more staff and resources.”

He twirled on his feet, sliding on the smooth surface of the floor, taking another drag. “Some rich fucker has to die for them to wanna help people. People like us … And how do they help people like us? Isolation and ridicule. We live in a cruel world.”

He made his way back to the vanity, where his paint lay out. It reminded him of Murray. Of that night so many years ago. In the dressing room, getting ready to go out on stage. His life-long dream come true. 

He looked into his reflection.

The white paint was on, it was just his eyes, nose and his mouth left. He always enjoyed this part of the job. Preparing for his act. Peaceful. His tears would wet the paint, and he’d do it all over again.

It took time and perfection. Sometimes the laughter would kick in and he’d mess up a stroke. But not tonight. 

He smiled wide, fingers in his mouth to stretch his lips further than natural. Letting go, his skin snapping in place, he once more turned to the man behind him. 

He didn’t say it, but he knew who would be waiting for him. 

The batwoman. He smirked. 

“Let’s go. The party isn’t going to crash itself.”

_1991, Benson Manor_

“I don’t want you going with me Mallory.”

“Why not? What’s so different about this? I’ve gone with you before, and nothing bad happened.” Mallory tried to understand, following after Zoe who was getting ready for the charity event. 

Zoe paused; eyes disturbed. Perhaps remembering something from her past. “I don’t think you’re helpless. I never have. But it’s too dangerous. This isn’t any thug, or-or us stopping another one of Madison’s heists.”

“Then what is it? I want to help. I need to,” she whispered, eyes welling with tears. 

When they had found her in the underground facility, there wasn’t anger. They didn’t see a new problem to solve. They saw potential. Zoe took her under her wing. Trained her. Afterall, it was Mallory’s father that worked with the batwoman. Commissioner Moore. The only good cop around in the city. 

Zoe sighed, unwrapping the bandage around the circumference of her waist. Her stomach, painted in bruises and cuts. Mallory winced with Zoe as she did it. 

“It has something to do with that man. Michael…” Mallory knew she shouldn’t have said his name, by the change in Zoe’s posture, the uneasiness of her gaze. “Why would he be there?”

“To prove a point. He’s insane. Obsessed, unpredictable. A sociopathic murderer that hides behind a mask…”

Mallory’s lips thinned. “Then you’ll need me. Even if just for an extra pair of eyes. Nothing bad will happen Zoe. Not if we’re there to stop it.”

Conflict inside Zoe’s head echoed with sounds of war within her eyes. “You have to stay by my side. Not wander off on your own. I can’t lose you too Mallory. Not to him.”

_1991, Gotham Avenue, Charity Ball_

The evening had started with simmering anxiety and paranoia. Mallory remaining close by to Zoe, masquerading as a waitress. 

Zoe masqueraded as the rich, arrogant girl blessed with nepotism. 

When the fear of man painted in clown makeup and green hair disappeared, it was easy to relax. To just be. 

To witness the beauty of the theatre the ball took place in. Glittering lights above like the towering buildings in the city centre, the ones she would look at from her bedroom window. So much hope. 

Beautiful gowns and suits. Zoe looked beautiful herself. Red gown, neckline low and dipping to her navel. 

Despite the beauty, it all felt wrong. 

These people, dressed in their expensive clothes, pretending to care about the welfare of people different to them. Pretending to want to change the city for the better. They had eight years to do so, yet no one had stood up to the challenge. Not until Zoe. 

The lights seemed to dim. Nothing was beautiful anymore. 

It was all false. A façade. 

And in her dark thoughts, she saw him. The orange suit. The green hair and painted face. 

He looked for Zoe, who had disappeared. His pale, shark eyes scanning the theatre from a shadowy corner. 

No one noticed him, no one but her. 

The pale eyes searched and searched.

Until their eyes met. 

Like he knew who she was. What she knew. He grinned at her. 

The vision burned in her mind as she disappeared. Ready to put on her mask. 

Gunshots fired in the air. Mad laughter. Screams. 

She ran faster. 

And yet she could still hear his voice. 

“Who wants to hear a joke?”


End file.
